Partnering with artists just one way Barnstable Land Trust preserves, shares open spaces

By Susan Vaughn

BARNSTABLE — The Barnstable Land Trust has been focused for nearly 40 years on protecting the land and waterscapes of Cape Cod and is now looking at new ways to conserve what is left in a new wave of development.

Roofers from Cazeault Roofing work their way up the new barn Tuesday at the Barnstable Land Trust’s Fuller Farm property in Marstons Mills. Steve Heaslip/Cape Cod Times

“The theme of the board and organization has been ‘trying to be the organization our community needs us to be,’” Barnstable Land Trust Executive Director Janet Milkman said in an interview.

The trust’s board did a strategic plan about five and a half years ago and was “thinking long-term how to sustain conservation on Cape Cod and protect what is left,” she said.

The Trust has protected 1,000 acres on the Cape and 11,000 acres total along with the town. It worked hand-in-hand with town leaders to protect large sections of Barnstable’s Great Marsh, Crocker Neck, Bridge Creek and many smaller parcels. Milkman estimated the town has about 2,000 acres left of open land, or 15 to 20 percent.

“The conservation ethic on the Cape is long-lived,” Milkman said. “There is so much in nature that brings people to the Cape.

“It’s really important not to just protect land but to bring people to each other and to each other on the land.”

Trust teams up with artists, musicians

The Trust is working on that goal on several different fronts with trail maps of the entire town and by partnering with many groups, not just conservation organizations, but art centers, writers, libraries and a symphony.

“It’s part of our effort to bring more people together on the land in different ways with music and poetry,” Milkman said.

One of those efforts this year was “Words in the Wild” for which four Cape poets wrote original site-specific poems to honor Earth Day which were etched onto cedar trail signs on four hiking trails. Each poem includes a QR code connecting to audio recordings and other information. They can be found at Fuller Farm in Marstons Mills, Eagle Pond in Cotuit, Ropes Field in Cotuit and Pogorelc Sanctuary in West Barnstable.

In honor of international Make Music Day at the summer solstice, the Trust collaborated with the Cape Cod Symphony to provide a free participatory percussion concert of flower pot music at Ropes Field in Cotuit with more than 50 people participating. People also were invited to make pollinator-themed arts/crafts with the Cotuit Library before the concert.

A barn raising at Fuller Farm

Another effort at expanding the Trust’s vision was the purchase of Fuller Farm in Marstons Mills where Riehl Builders of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, recently built a post and beam barn. Former owner Barbara Fuller didn’t want to sell the former dairy farm for development, Milkman said.

“We are trying to honor her vision and bring back the farm," Milkman said.

Also on the farm, Resilient Roots has put in a garden, a goat company has been brought in, and a pollinator field has been developed.

The barn will house stewardship equipment, a maintenance garage and workshops.

Mapping Barnstable's trails

Another outreach effort was creating the Trust’s first maps of all the trails throughout Barnstable at a suggestion during the pandemic that many more people were going outside and using the trails. The maps cover the Trust’s trails as well as those of the town, the Audubon Society and others.

“The 10,000 maps are almost gone in less than a year,” Milkman said.

The Trust also has a Cape Cod Pathways walking trail map that extends for 11 miles from the Sandwich line north of Route 6 and one for the 182-acre Eagle Pond Sanctuary in Cotuit.

The maps can be picked up at the Trust’s first standalone offices on Route 6A and are available on the Trust’s website. The 10-acre site overlooking the Great Marsh provides new meeting and program space as well and makes the Trust more visible to the public, Milkman said.

“It’s an interesting time for land conservation, especially for Cape Cod,” said Sue Sullivan, director of communications for the Trust.

Effort to impact Twin Brooks project

The Trust was formed in 1983 when “development was rampant,” according to its website, and is now facing new development challenges. Jaci Barton, one of the founders of the Trust and former executive director, led the group’s efforts for more than 30 years.

“Janet (Milkman) has led the charge with the Cape Cod Commission on how recreation and open space land are categorized, that it should be treated differently,” Sullivan said.

That view came into play with the proposed development of the former Twin Brooks Golf Course in Hyannis for 312 rental homes in 13 three-story buildings, a clubhouse and 468 parking spaces, the largest current housing project on one of the last large open spaces in Hyannis.

The project has the potential for significant negative impacts on traffic, estuary water quality and community quality of life, the Trust has stated. The Trust offered to help the owner find ways to conserve some of the land and provide more open space. It hired an architectural and planning firm, which devised such a plan.

“The developers were not interested,” Milkman said, but added, “The town could still make a choice.”

Milkman is also disappointed that a Cape Cod Commission committee recently approved a draft of the project.

New president on board

Milkman said areas such as bogs, camps, farms and recreation areas are perceived as open space, but people don’t realize they can be developed. The Trust, along with 19 other conservation commissions, is trying to get the Cape Cod Commission to treat those areas differently. They sent a letter and the commission agreed to a stakeholders’ meeting in the spring, but it was “really inconclusive,” Milkman said.

Despite these challenges, Milkman said, “It’s an exciting time.”

Barnstable Land Trust relies mostly on funding from individual donors and receives some from the town’s Community Preservation Act funds and state grants, Milkman said. Its board and volunteers are important for maintaining all the Trust lands.

At its recent annual meeting, Barnstable Land Trust elected a new board president, Leigh Townes from Cotuit, and presented a Founders Award to Scott Horsley of Cotuit and its President’s Award to Peter Pometti, also from Cotuit.